I love series of unrelated one-shots. Especially the smutty kind. So I'm trying my hand at it!

Sort of.

I'd rather tackle afterglow.

Title: A Pleasant Sort of Burn

Pairing: Irish Swan

God, his mouth tasted like shit. Like dried yeast on the bottom of a keg or a bootblack's rag. He'd imbibed alcohol. And lots of it, if the sour fuzziness coating his teeth was to be trusted. Graham worked his mouth around his tongue, trying to move some saliva over it. It was thick and lolled in his mouth as he licked the roof of his mouth. He hadn't just guzzled whiskey and porter, he'd marinated in it. His brain pounded behind his eyes like a drum solo, and his stomach churned like it was stuck on spin cycle. Saints above, he'd never had so much to drink. Why had he tried to replace his stomach acid with stout?

Blinking seemed a terrible chore, made even more difficult by the crud seaming his eyelashes together. But after a few college tries, he got most of the sleep off, allowing him to flutter his eyes open. The ceiling above him was completely unfamiliar. His efficiency had acoustical drop tiles – this one was paneled with weathered shiplap.

How did he get to this strange apartment, and why did he feel the need to lubricate that journey with every last drop of booze Storybrooke had to offer?

Graham rubbed a paw over his eye and bowed his back forward into an arch. No less than seven joints popped as he stretched. Beneath his bare shoulders and butt – definitely naked – warm cotton sheets molded and slid against his muscles. Definitely naked and definitely on a bed, one more comfortable than his own. It wasn't the downy pillow top or springy coils that surpassed his mattress. His had both in spades (a gift from Regina – ick). No, this one was better because it smelled of woodsy flowers, crystalline water and the first flush of grass after a summer storm.

This bed smelled of Emma.

Of the delicate lace scalloping the neckline of her camisole, the short wisps of hair at the base of her neck, the skin dipping in the hollows of her collarbones. Sweet, sumptuous Emma. Was she still there?

Yes, Graham marveled to himself as he dipped head to the right. There she is. On her side, turned away from him, she was all gems and precious stones in the darkness of the room. The blue light of the moon peeking through the window turned her skin to pearl, and the curls that feathered over her pillow were silver filaments. With the sheet pulled down around her hips, he could easily trace the shadowed dips of her spine with his eyes, with his hands.

Why shouldn't he? They'd gotten to this place in a far more intimate way. It started with a dare, Graham remembered. That yeoman from the docks, Killian Jones, had been undressing Emma with his eyes for the better part of the evening. Emma had noticed and done nothing except smile and banter and flirt with the sailor, until he stepped between them. Go home with a real man, he dared her. Killian goaded him by saying she'd been about to until a certain boy scout showed up.

As he looked Emma straight in the soul, he saw her expression grow from peeved to intrigued. Challenge accepted, her tilted brows and pursed lips screamed.

That wasn't the last time she screamed.

She screamed until her voice cracked, and rather than flee once she'd finished claiming her pleasure… to say the least, she certainly didn't behave like the Emma who came to work eternally pissed off. Graham thought the sex would've sent her running, that Emma the Sex Kitten would flee without said sex to distract her. But without the sex, Emma the Sex Kitten became, well, Emma the Kitten. She purred and wiggled around, squirming until she'd found the perfect napping position. Before she fell asleep, she joked and she teased, something so unlike Emma that Graham was worried he'd fucked the abrasiveness right out of her. Then, as she laughed, when she let herself be tickled and cuddled, he prayed for the same thing. Afterglow with Emma was unlike anything he'd ever experienced, so much so that he needed more.

Rolling onto his side, he squirmed his way across the king sized bed, aligning himself from hip to shoulder with her. Graham curled into a comma around Emma, until every inch of his chest was glued to her much narrower back. She sighed in her sleep and rotated her shoulders back against his bulk. He mumbled affection against her neck, hoisting his leg over her hip to draw her closer.

"The room's too cold," he whispered into her hair, before slinging his arm loosely around her waist. She gave the most delicious mew at the extra weight, burrowing further into the warmth of the pillow beneath her. "I'll keep you warm."

"Get your drunk, Irish ass off of me this instant."

That was not a mew, and it most certainly did not come from Emma.

Eyes nearly bugging out of his head, Graham picked his head up from Emma's crown. It only took a minute for his eyes to find the owner of the gruff, sleep-roughened voice. Ocean-grey eyes glared at him from three days of beard growth. A long moment passed where all he could do was stare at the far-too-masculine face, so ridiculously out of place in what felt like a marriage bed.

And then a long-fingered, rope-weathered hand clapped down on his face and violently shoved him away. Things stopped feeling marital right about then.

Graham gasped as he rolled to the other side of the bed, thrust clear away from Emma's pliant body. Sputtering as he righted himself in the mess of pillows and quilts, he shook unruly brown curls from his forehead and got a better look at the pesky interloper, dismayed by what he saw.

Upon first awaking, he thought Emma was simply turned away from him. Not so, he now saw. Her pale, sinuous form wasn't curled around a cushion or comforter. She was plastered against Killian Jones's side, her head on his chest and arm around his waist. The reason Graham hadn't noticed his fellow bedmate was because at the start of his impromptu cuddling, Killian had both arms under his head. Now, they were both wrapped like iron bands around Emma's slim shoulders.

Oh. Damn. That's right. Emma hadn't wanted to go home with just one real man. She'd gone home with two. And they hadn't gone home, he now realized. They'd gone to Killian's home by the bay. Graham smelled the salt and brine of low tide and heard the waves lapping outside the window. If that wasn't enough, that leather Paletot coat Killian always wore was draped over a velvet wingback. Alongside Emma's lacy black bra and matching undies.

Killian was much quicker to recover. "Go away," he whispered as loudly as he could without waking Emma. "Go away right now."

Graham bristled at the command, rising up on to his hands. He swore he growled when he saw Killian stroke his one broad hand up and down Emma's back. All of the memories he'd blissfully made with Emma that night washed over him, and every one of them featured an unwelcome guest star.

His first kiss with Emma came after Killian's.

Killian had been the first to press his mouth between her thighs.

While Graham rode Emma hard into the bed, her legs coiled tightly around his hips, Killian plucked at her nipples and bit marks into her shoulders, breasts, and one far too close to the neckline of her shirt.

Everything he did to Emma, Killian did as well. Even after, when the mood turned from wanton to lighthearted, Killian was there, smoothing his stubbly chin against her ear while Graham tickled her with stomach with his nose. The whole time the three of them were… um… frolicking, however, the two men never addressed each other. Didn't look at each other, didn't speak, nothing. He remembered at one point, when Emma sleepily laughed at something Killian said, bubbly and golden like French champagne, Graham laughed as well. But only because her laughter made him joyous.

"I am not going home," he hissed with all the venom of a flared cobra, still propped on his hands. "She invited both of us here, and when she wakes up, both of us will be here. Keep calm, for god's sake."

"This is my house," Killian barked angrily, rolling slightly onto his side, probably to appear less vulnerable. Flat on your back with nearly everything hanging out was the perfect position for being punched. "I will not keep calm, and you can fuck right off."

Yep. Killian definitely needed to be punched, but as Graham reached over to flick him between the eyes, Emma mewled again. This time it was an unhappy sound, marked by goose bumps and a knitted brow. Both men went still and silent as Emma burrowed further into Killian's chest. Graham seethed at the intimacy of her hold, at the way Killian cooed to Emma when he tucked her closer. He saw the affection in Killian's eyes as he flattened his mouth over her forehead. Too much affection. Much like Emma was someone entirely unexpected after a thorough rodgering, so was Killian. Gone was the brash, piss-and-vinegar seadog, and in its place was a doting husband.

Goddamn, that was his job.

"I'm not going anywhere," Graham finally bit out, and just to annoy the old salt, he reached to the foot of the bed where the main quilt had been kicked down. Killian narrowed his eyes, glaring as Graham tenderly wrapped the green coverlet around Emma's shoulders. "We both deserve to wake up to her."

Flopping down onto the pillows, Graham crossed his arms beneath his head, fully prepared to fall asleep next to his lady love, and the other man she used for a stud service.

But Killian? He was having none of that.

"Oh really?" he purred dangerously. "We'll see."

Brow cocked high on his forehead, Graham watched in boredom as Killian gently laid Emma in the bed, right before he slid out of it. Immediately, Graham reached for Emma, smoothing his fingers over her rounded cheeks, her stubborn chin. He wouldn't lie and say that she had a pleasant face. Beautiful, yes, but pleasant? No, she frowned too much too look pleasant. But when she slept, and the corners of her eyes relaxed, she –

"I'm about to burn you good, sheriff boy."

What?

"Just go take a slash already, you dumb deckhand." Rolling his eyes, Graham looked up, fully prepared to give Killian quite the lashing, only to see the other man sliding the window open with his hand…

While waving his clothes, boots and holster around with his hook.

Still crouched over Emma, Graham's eyes went wide as saucers in terror. "What the hell are you doing?!" Killian's answering grin was malicious. Without so much as a warning, he threw every last one of Graham's possessions out the window, to the dock three stories below.

Oh God.

Oh fuck.

"You have two choices, crossing guard Humbert. You can either leave my flat straightaway to gather your underthings in the dead of night when no one can see you, or do it in the morning, right as all of my fellow deckhands are mending their nets. I'm sure some of them would go for a man with no tan lines. This being a modern world and all."

Graham could only gape in shock.

"Times a-ticking, security guard," Killian all but gloated, hand and hook on his hips as gloried in his victory. "I told you I'd burn you good."

Killian couldn't say he appreciated the male form too much, but as he watched Sheriff Graham Humbert scurry around in the darkness, frantically gathering his clothes, he couldn't recall a more attractive sight. Three stories below him, the taller, tanner man scampered around desperately in nothing but his button down shirt, holster and boxer shorts. Based on his speed and state of undress, Killian strongly suspected that the rest of his clothing was somewhere beneath the waves. Thank God his schooner was at a different dock, otherwise it'd probably have sunk in a hail of gunfire.

Burned good, indeed.

"You know, for having a forest on your chest and quite the happy trail, your shoulders and ass are remarkably hairless."

Smiling to himself, Killian closed the window and the blinds, leaving the sheriff to flounder alone in the darkness. Pompous git.

Turning back to his sweet honeycomb, Killian realized he was wrong. He could recall a more attractive sight. It was Emma, curled into his pillows and blankets, her chin propped in her slender hand as her eyes raked over him. That glorious hair fell in finger-tousled curls over her milky breasts, and her nipples were still rosy and kiss-bruised from when he'd suckled them into tight, little beads.

Needless to say, Graham hadn't touched them once.

"Smooth as a baby's bottom, love?" he joked as he swaggered over to the bed, naked as the day he was born. Odd to say, the mood hardly felt sexual. He wasn't erect by any stretch of the imagination (though that could be amended), and Emma was too sleepy-eyed, too limp and tenderized to move an inch. Even holding her own head up seemed to be too much trouble, as she let her head fall to the pillow with both hands tucked beneath her cheek.

"No, you're still a furry bastard," she murmured as he crawled back under the covers. "Like a lion. But I like it."

It seemed that the cuddly, post-coital Emma was still around, because as soon as he'd pulled the blanket up over them, she was looking to cuddle. First she tried to tuck herself securely into his side, but no amount of wriggling or contortionism made her comfortable in that position. Chuckling, he helped her hitch her legs over and between his, adjusting her until she was draped over his chest, stretched over him from ankle to shoulders.

"Sleep, my darling," he whispered as she flattened her cheek over his heart. She whimpered her agreement and went limp as a ragdoll, but not before asking the most obvious question of the evening. Outside of will it fit.

With some preparation, he was happy to say it did.

"Where'd Graham go?"

Killian brought his one hand up to cradle the back of Emma's head, his incomplete arm barred tightly around her waist.

"Regina called him. Said it was urgent. He hopped out of here, like… actually, like he'd been burned." One more kiss was pressed to her brow, and then her breath deepened and evened out. His good girl was asleep. He was anything but.

He thought back to the bar, to the continuation of their perpetual flirting. He flirted with her because she was beautiful and fascinating. She flirted back because Emma never backed down from a challenge. He'd led himself to believe it meant nothing.

And then tonight happened. The drinks at the bar, the game of pool he coyly pulled her into, all of it was a ploy to break her. No, not to hurt her, not to ruin her by any means. She was prickly as a cactus, and annoying to boot, but he only wanted to break her enough to get a glimpse at the real Emma. Not the thorns or dry wit. To see if, behind those walls, Emma might find him to be someone worth knowing.

Then that bloody, buggering fuck Graham had to show up and tempt Emma away from him. He knew the sheriff wanted to fuck her brains out when Regina wasn't whipping him into submission. Emma looked at the Dublin twit the same way sometimes, much like the way she looked at him whenever she came to the docks. Sometimes to arrest him, but other times, just to look at his maps or learn how to tie a new knot. He saw a glimpse of the Emma he was holding now in that woman who mended sails with him. Behind her walls, Emma was many things. Wounded, haunted, soft, pliant, very fond of oral.

"Giving and receiving," Killian chuckled to himself as the need to sleep started lapping at his feet. He could understand why she sought out two men instead of one. Women had needs, sometimes greater than one man could handle.

Although, now that he knew exactly what her needs were, one man would more than suffice.

I don't know what that was. I was inspired by all the other great writers who tackled Irish Swan, but my brain went in a totally different and much sillier direction.

Blame it on the alcohol!

I don't have a beta for these, because they're too goofy to have one. If you want to see the work of a great beta, check out trustpixiedust. Her stories are amazing.